Wanted marries The Matrix‘s visual roadmap with the self-loathing corporate worker-bee narration from Fight Club. It’s arguably the most expensive movie mash-up ever released. And while the filmmakers and some easily impressed fans tout the film as a work of innovation, it just simply isn’t. Other than the hilarious concept involving the characters taking their marching orders from a loom (The Loom of Fate!!! buhahaha), Wanted is a Xerox of a Xerox.
Yet, that doesn’t mean it isn’t as fun as a roll in the sack with your sexy ex-lover. Director Timur Bekmambetov turbo charges the tale of a young corporate drone recruited into a secret society of day-time weavers, night-time assassins with enough zippy action that you can’t help but enjoy the sucker.
It also helps that James McAvoy makes a believable everyman turned action God, despite screaming like Kate Capshaw for the majority of the film (I’m sure once this DVD goes public YouTube will be rife with videos editing these moments together). As usual, Morgan Freeman, Hollywood’s off-the-shelf product for when a film — no matter how shitty — needs an injection of dignity, brings… well, some dignity to the movie as the leader of the weaver-assassins. And I have no idea, beyond the obvious sex appeal, why anyone should care that Angelina Jolie shows up in the movie. Sure, the marketing is centered around her (or more specifically, her bulbous lips and tats), but all Jolie does is alternate between sexy smile and sneering glower and then occasionally mumbles a few lines of bland dialogue. Just when I hop on the Jolie bandwagon after her devastating performance in A Mighty Heart, she knocks me off with the typical superficial, soulless performance she’s infamous for among those of us not blindsided by her looks.
As for the DVD, the bonus features are pedestrian at best. It’s nothing more than a hodge-podge of perfunctory 6-10 minute featurettes on the stunts, special-effects, and visual-effects (although the disc does get brownie points for distinguishing between special and visual effects). There’s also a 20 minute doc on the movie’s cast and characters that’s essentially an extended infomercial for those who haven’t seen the film. The only interesting tidbits from the bonus features revolve around the film’s source material, Mark Millar’s comic book of the same name (the film is a very loose adaptation). And the main thing I gathered from a featurette on translating the comic to film and another feature that adds some motion and audio to a few of the comic book pages is that Millar’s comic was god awful. Sometimes loose adaptations are a very good thing (remember that Twilight fans).
However, considering Wanted‘s derivative nature, this isn’t a movie I’m really interested in knowing all the behind-the-scenes details. But if you really need to know, then maybe it’s best to hold off — I’m sure a double-dip is inevitable. But if you only desire a big dumb flick to toss into your player on a boring Sunday afternoon, then it’s hard not to recommend Wanted.
